What's the excitement around the White house today? Abby has started basketball and loves her coach; Matthew played 3 on 3 with the 'old guys' (aka dad and his basketball teacher-buddies) today; Tris and 3 of his fellow teachers won a fund-raising lunch-hour basketball tournament and they were the OLD GUYS! Me? I've been home reading and resting, popping out of the house now and then for things like tea with a friend, a trip to the school library, or bible study. Thankfully, our computer is out of the shop and so I will be able to do a few things I've been wanting to do while I am recuperating. Hopefully I'll get the dozen or so mini-dvs edited and burned onto cd, as well as editing and culling through my old photos. I prayed when the hard drive crashed that I wouldn't lose my last 6 months worth of photos and, God is good, they have all survived. In a nutshell, I am not playing basketball but I now have something other than tv or books to keep me occupied at home. This recuperating shouldn't last too much longer.

Not to dwell on dengue fever, but we've been told that one of the clinical symptoms of the fever is homesickness. I have to say that if, during the first 2 weeks, someone had handed me a ticket to Canada I would have been on a plane faster than you can say 'dengue.' I wanted my old house, my old bed, the snow outside and me snuggled inside (and I don't like snow), and I wanted everyone around me to speak english. One of the things I found I really disliked for 2 weeks was Bahasa Indonesia, and this is strange because the language has been quite life-giving to me as I've learned it over the past 1/2 year. As I am feeling better, these symptoms have decreased and as much as I love and miss my home country, life is starting to fall back into place here.

Although we do not have to make a decision for one more year about renewing our contract here, our family has done a bit of soul-searching at the dinner table. What it comes down to is that Indonesia was never on our list of places to live, but the opportunity fell into our laps and we took it and ran with it. I wonder who put it there in the first place? Ultimately what we want as a family is to do God's will and to be the best where we are, whether it's here or in Canada. Whether we stay longer or not is to be determined at a much later date, but we realize that as we are here our individual attitudes will make or break our time here.

Today I met the new Junior School principal's wife, Sylvia at my Wednesday bible study. Actually, I met her and her husband, Gregg, late last year when they came to do the position interview. They're originally from Vancouver, BC and what a treat it is to talk about the area with someone who has lived there. We can discuss cities, streets, transportation, mountains, recreation, universities (a few of their kids are UBC-ers) and they can relate. This may sound crazy, but it's so refreshing to have these conversations. I know it's not healthy to do so every time we meet, but it is like getting a little taste of home. She and Gregg had raised their family in India since 1991 and I have a feeling they've got a lot of wonderful stories to tell.

I knew that once the hols were over and mom and dad left that there wouldn't be a lot to post, but since this seems to be my main means of getting information out, I will continue! A few more notes about our lives: Abby and I took a walk today, hoping to somehow check out the possible-orphanage or school boarding house behind us, but there were no opportunities to meet anybody (yet). Our helper, Sri, has moved her 'weekend home' 10 minutes from our house and it seems to have caused a more positive adjustment in our home; she seems to be enjoying her life here in our home more and we are sure appreciating having her help, especially this last month. As for company, we were very, very sad to find out that Adam and Stephanie Campbell won't be able to visit us during their visit to Thailand; we were looking forward to hanging out for a few days with this crazy, wonderful couple. However, we are expecting company in May now that Dale O has booked her tickets! I am so excited to know a friend is coming just to hang with me. My friend, Dale's niece, Candace, is heading to Mozambique this early summer and we'll be seeing her at the end of August for over a week. A few others have said they are looking at coming but until they book their tickets I won't allow myself to get too excited. We feel really blessed that people are coming to visit in our first year here; many expats have told us that they haven't had very many visitors in years of living here, mostly because of the cost.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks for reading.

Time to Update!

I realize that it's been a while since I've updated our blog, and I have good reason. As I told Janet Weeda tonight, I've had to swallow my pride and realize that yes, it is going to take a while for me to recuperate from the fever. Never in my life have I been sick for more than 2 weeks; I am now on the upswing but my body still wants me to relax. That's not easy! I hate to admit it, but I am bored. Resources are harder to come by here and even if I found some (ie/ a sewing machine) it's difficult to find the rest of the things I would need to do projects (ie/ material, needles, patterns). I have read everything in the house of interest to me and so I think it's time to wander over to the senior school library and check out the shelves. Enough whining.

As an aside, one of the other reasons that I haven't been blogging is that our hard drive seems to have got a fever of its own and is now in the shop. This was a scary concept because all of my photos from the last 6 months are on it and (gulp) I haven't yet backed them up, except for what's on this blog. Thankfully, the computer techies working on it say that they can fix it without losing any data. Hallelujah! I am now typing on Tris' laptop which means that there will be no photos on this posting.

As I write, the kids are getting ready for bed and Tris is finishing up some marking. Yesterday he handed in a Masters assignment that was due today, and got his mark back already. Twenty-eight out of 30. I love being married to such a studious, intelligent man. Matthew got his report card last week and he did quite well. Takes after his dad.

In the background I hear the noise of a whole slew of children. We're not sure, but we think that the renovations that we were hearing a few weeks back have resulted in, quite possibly, an orphanage of some sort behind our house. The key word here is DIRECTLY behind our house. All noise from that house carried into our bedroom and our dining room, especially the singing that occurs as the possible-dozen children sing themselves awake around 5 am every morning (including weekends) and to sleep again around 10 pm. I am so very tempted to make a huge batch of cookies and take it over; not sure if anyone speaks english but cookies always speak volumes. Maybe if I get to know them I can bribe them into talking very softly on the weekends until around 8 am; cookies for quiet, sounds reasonable to me! We met a few girls who we think may be around 10 years old. Tris was in our back yard recycling and they were giggling at him. So far, with all of the kids we've seen with our own eyes, there are about 7 children. If we find out that there are 20 we will not be surprised. One of the things we're a little curious about here are zoning laws; we don't think they're the same as in Canada.

Today is my dad's birthday. We were able to celebrate it a little (and Tris' as well) early January when we took my parents to the Marriot Hotel in Jakarta. It was an all you can eat buffet of all kinds of wonderful dishes. One of the best things about eating there, especially after travelling, is that we are pretty sure that the prepping & cooking conditions in the kitchen are sanitary. The food is pretty incredible, too. There is an Indonesian singing strings quartet that walks around the restaurant taking requests. I tried to get them to sing the Beatles' "When I'm 64" but unfortunately they didn't know it. They sang Obladi-obladah instead and so we dedicated that to the guys for their birthdays. Happy Birthday Dad.

It's time to wrap it up. Everyone's heading to bed on this Chinese New Years holiday Monday. It's an early 8:18 pm but tomorrow is a school day and we go to bed early here.

Thanks for reading.

Dengue Fever

Back to reality...except what is that? Mom and dad left last night; hopefully they're somewhere high above the Pacific as I write this. They left Sunday night, will spend 10 hours in Tokyo and arrive at YVR Monday morning. The concept of time and travel is just so difficult to wrap my head around, especially right now. At this point, wrapping my head around the fact that I need to brush my teeth after I eat a good breakfast is difficult enough. Last week I caught a bit of a fever and, thinking that it was going to be like any other flu, I sweat and slept it off for a day, and then headed to Bali with my parents. Once I got there all I wanted to do was sleep and to recuperate. Little did I know that I wasn't needing recuperation at that point; my body needed total rehabilitation. Mom and dad called in a Bali Dr an she came and gave me a bunch of antiobiotics, fever control and vitamins. Told my parents that because of my symptoms there was no chance I had malaria or dengue fever (a common fever in the Indonesian area; caused by mosquitoe bites). This Doctor didn't have a clue. By Wednesday (we'd arrived Saturday) I decided that I just wanted to be in my own bed with the potential to go to a really good Doctor if needed, so my parents took me to the airport and our temporary driver, Selamat, picked me up on this end. Turns out i did have dengue fever after all, and it's a good thing I came home from Bali when I did. The doctor I ended up seeing here gave me the option of drinking 4 litres of water in a very short period, or being hospitalized. Needless to say, I became water-logged over the next 12 hours. I sent out a quick email to a few people who I knew would pass on the information and ask others to pray, so thanks for responding and thanks for praying. At this point I am in a weird head-space and am not sure whether it's because my parents have just left for Canada and I'm left here in Indonesia or if it's because of the illness. Regardless, it's going to take a few days for me to figure out which way my head is screwed on. I've copied a bit of medical info re: dengue fever into this post to give you an idea of the ordeal that this illness is. For the record, I am feeling better each day.

"Following the deposit of the dengue virus in the skin by the bite, there is a an incubation period of 2 - 14 (usually 4 - 8) days.
Thereafter onset of symptoms is usually abrupt, coinciding with viremia (the virus multiplying in the bloodstream) with chills, headache, backache, weakness, pain behind the eyes, flushing of the face, muscle and joint pain, and lassitude. The joint and back pains can be very bad indeed; hence the older name 'breakbone fever'.
The temperature rapidly rises, often to 40°C (104°F), and there is a low heart rate (compared to the degree of, and other causes of, high fever). The blood pressure is often low also. A transient rash which blanches under pressure may be seen during the first 24 hours of fever.
During the 2nd to 6th day of fever, nausea and even vomiting may occur, and the patient may develop one or more of the following; skin hypersensitivity, generalized swelling of regional lymph nodes, swelling of the palms, changes in taste sensation, loss of appetite, constipation, anxiety and depression.
Within 2 to 4 days a temporary improvement can occur with a sudden drop in temperature and subjective improvement - for 24 hours until there is a second rapid temperature rise. A generalized morbilliform (“measles-like”) rash appears a characteristic rash on the trunk, limbs, palms and soles especially. (This second febrile phase does not invariably occur). This rash usually disappears in 1-5 days, the skin in these areas turns bright red and may peel. The temperature should fall back to normal and the infectious episode is effectively over."

Apparently the US was studing dengue fever as biological warfare for a part of the War. I wouldn't wish this illness on my worst enemy!

Thanks for reading.

Back from the hills!

In less than 48 hours our family, including Poppa and Grandma Bea, along with the Weeda family, the Weeda grandparents and Steven P have travelled to the mountains, shopped in outlet stores (yes, in the mountains!!! Weird, isn't it?), walked amongst a gorgeous villa garden, slept in that same villa, and visited a wild animal park. Whew! It was a fun, adventurous whirlwind trip and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Now our family is hunkering down to a family video, very aware that the time that Grandma and Poppa have with the kids and Tris is ticking by very quickly. The three of us head to Bali this Saturday and then, once mom and dad return, they repack quickly and head back to Canada the next day.

Although this time is passing so quickly, there are so many memories that mom and dad will pack home with them, in both memory form and in digital form. On this 2 day trip alone between us we took about 600 photos. We'd like to share a few of them with you. Once we hit Puncak we stopped at a local KFC where the chicken is almost the same as what you are used to, just a little SPICIER! Our first tourist stop was the tea plantation that I wrote about in early December. The grandparents and Steven loved the views, but we only stayed a short time. We had shopping ahead to do (and it started sprinkling). We did get a few good shots at the plantation and at a rest stop just above it. I was thrilled to use the new lense that Tris and the kids bought me for Christmas. With it I was able to get a close up of workers that were quite far away.

We then hit the outlet stores, and although it took us a while to get warmed up, most of us found a few good items to take home with us. Abby was thrilled because she hit the jackpot; she said it's the first time she's ever bought so many things at once. I think my daughter has discovered a buried love of clothes shopping...uh oh!

Not far from the outlets stores was our villa, very generously provided for us by local Lippo family whom I've never even met. There are few words that can describe the beauty of the gardens around the house, and I don't think mine would do it justice, so I've included a few photos. The inside of the house was lovely as well. When we arrived we were greeted by Ibu Siti, a very elderly woman who stays in the villa. She was very accommodating to the 14 of us, plus the Weeda's driver. She didn't speak any english, and the driver spoke very little as well, so I was able to use my little bit of Bahasa Indonesia again to try and communicate the needs of the Bule crowd to Ibu Siti. In this photo, Ibu Siti isn't wearing anything on her head, it is just the way the vine in the background was situated behind her.

We spent the night watching movies, playing games and reading. The next morning I went for a walk in the garden with Neil Weeda, who showed me all of the spiders and webs that he'd found the night before. I've never seen such big spiders in all my life! The way that the garden paths wound around at different levels, I was able to shoot some interesting shots of the spider and some willing and rather happy looking victims.

For the record, I was about 1 metre from the spider and so were the others on the other side of the web.

Around 9 am we headed for Taman Safari, where you sit in your car and watch wild animals wander outside of your car. Hopefully you see them up close as your windows remain shut. However, reality and rules don't always mix. For the first part of the ride you are aren't told by any signs to keep your windows shut, and on the way to the site are tons of vendors selling carrots and bananas, so what is a family of bules to do? We were able to stick carrots and bananas out the window to start, and then the animals began to discover some of the food on our laps. There were a lot of friendly animals on this safari!!

After we drove through that section we headed to a "do not open your window or else" section. Like that stopped anybody! I think one of my favourite shots is of the male lion. He was only about 8 metres away from our vehicle. There were so many shots but sometimes the photos one takes aren't always enjoyed as much by a distant onlooker...I'll share only the favourites.

This tiger was so close that if we opened our door to step out we would have stepped on his beautiful head!

After the safari we returned to the main parking, bought lunch at a Rainforest Restaurant (hmmm, sounds like a place I've been before...) and we even got to eat western food. Just outside of the restaurant were about 5 elephants, and they were extremely tame. We were able to touch them, feed them and take a bunch of touristy photos.

Grandma Bea is brave...this elephant had bad breathe!!!

The last leg of our safari was through a bird aviary and then to an area where you can pay to hold some baby animals. Of course, how can you say no to holding a baby lion or orangutan? We had to admit afterwards, we think maybe the animals had been slightly drugged, and one larger leopard baby in particular was extremely grumpy. When we saw how the handler treated him it is no wonder the cat was in a foul mood. We weren't very pleased.

in this photo Matthew is discovering that baby orangutans love to have their bellies tickled!Tris came out of his experience with a few scratches, but I think he feels it was worth it. The tiger cub he held was trying to chew the keys out of Tris' pockets for a long time; I think he's giving the little guy a talking-to right here.

Once we had our fill of holding these lovelies, our family decided to head home. While the Weedas stayed on, we drove back with only one stop at a fruit stand and then homewards. One of the things that I love most is bartering here. Each time I do I learn something new...lately it's been to watch what the vendor is selling me. This time I caught him switching pineapples on me...wanted to give me one that was hard and green, insisted it was the one I originally chose, and then only gave in when I walked away. When mom and I were buying rings on Lombok the same thing happened, except that vendor actually removed one of the rings from mom's stash, put it back into the show case and feigned ignorance when I called him on it. Gotta be on the ball!

Again, this is a rather long posting, but with mom and dad here there's so much more going on in our home and lives. Once they're gone I can pretty much guarantee the postings will be a little less busy and colourful...for a while.

There are two photos that we took specifically. One is for Aunt Sam, and it's of her favourite animal, the hippo.

The other is for Dale. I bought a newspaper off of a boy magazine seller just like I was told..I even took a photo. It's not in Jakarta, but I'm not sure that that was one of the stipulations. Although it is a very well-read paper (what do you expect when you have a house full of readers?) I will still send it home as further proof of purchase.

Thanks for reading!

Back to the Mountains

We're into week four and there's only two weeks left before mom and dad head back to Canada. Most of my friends' parents stay for only 3 weeks and so I figured with mine being here 6, we'd see so much and get to experience a whole bunch of Indonesia. I'm not complaining, because we have had incredible experiences already...but there's only 13 days left and there's so much we haven't done!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we leave for the same mountains that I wrote about earlier, those in the Puncak Pass. It's a little bit of a crazy trip, because not only are we heading back to the same mountains with the same family, this time we're taking 2 vehicles and 15 people on the 2 1/2 plus hour drive. If you can picture a typical North American suv, it usually holds about 6 people. Ours holds 7, but it's a tight squeeze. Our friends the Weedas have the exact same vehicle, and Steve Weeda's parents, who have just recently arrived from the US, are joining them in their vehicle. As well, they've hired a driver to lead the way in their car. Just to stir it up a bit, we've invited our friend Steven Poindexter (the guy we all originally met in Singapore) to come along. So...that's 15 people riding in 2 cars that usually comfortably hold 12 people total. Again, to stir it up a bit more, we've decided to stay the night in a villa in the mountains, so we have to pack few overnight bags. Unfortunately there are no food stores, at least not ones expats are used to, so we need to bring along some food. Not a lot, but enough to get us by for 2 lunches, one breakfast, and one dinner. That's not a problem. We should have most of it eaten by the time we hit a few outlet stores where we can buy oodles of clothes in NORTH AMERICAN sizes (yeehaw!) at really cheap prices. There's got to be some room on our laps, or at least around our legs. O yeah, maybe not our legs since that's where our overnight bags are going. Regardless, we're going shopping in the mountains and there's nothing that can stop us!

It's amazing what people will do for a few good sales and some clothing that fits! We're hoping for good weather, but regardless, we think it's going to be a great trip.

Thanks for reading.

Part II of Lombok Trip

I've debated what kinds of things to write about regarding the rest of our Lombok trip. Once Tris got sick on Christmas Day, the rest of our trip became slower paced because one by one each of us, except the kids, experienced stomach issues. I think that the best way to share the rest of our trip with you is to again post more photos and explain why they were so siginificant to me. The first one is of Abby, and I've uploaded it only because I think it is a beautiful shot, even if she is being goofy at the time. The next are of 2 of the different bugs that we saw while in Lombok. Unfortunately Matthew is at a sleepover as I write this or I'd be able to ask him what they are! If you know, please fill me in.












As I mentioned earlier, we rented a car for 2 days. The first day we spent exploring the south of the island, where we had our own private beach and I met the caribou rancher and his sons. One of the things I don't think I mentioned was the stop we made at a 'traditional village,' where they weave sarongs and traditional wear. We were told by the self-appointed guide that it wasn't a museum, but that Sasak (native to Lombok) people lived and worked in the village that we walked through. Little did we know until hindsight kicked later in the day (as we stopped at other little huts along the way) that the guide was lying to us big time, and that although the sarongs and scarves that we bought were beautiful, they were NOT woven there, and they weren't worth the prices we paid. However, if you don't experience you don't learn, and so out of this particular situation we learned that no matter where you travel, you can always find a better price somewhere else. If something is labelled 'traditional' for a certain area, then it will most likely be sold elsewhere as well, so it pays not to buy the first time you see something.

The guide told us that no woman is allowed to get married unless she knows how to weave. We're pretty sure that the older woman and the young girl were just plants that they put there as examples of pre-and post-. It sounds really cynical but we were royally ripped off. The old woman was spinning cotton but there were no other "projects" on the go anywhere else, except for the little girl sitting at a loom. She didn't actually DO anything while we were there except look at her mom like "Am I doing okay???"

Check out the expression on her face!!

The next day we decided to travel north. Mostly we stayed in the car so there were few shots of us, but we did get some incredible shots of the culture and the people. While the landscape in the south was mostly inland with incredible terraced rice fields and mountains, and ended (for us) at the ocean, the north was, interestingly, very different. We travelled mostly along the ocean and ended up high in the mountains. Most fields were cornfields except a few rice fields in the lower regions. This photo is of rice harvesting.There were canvas tarps alongside the roads everywhere, covered in drying corn, chilies and wheat. My goal of the day was to take a few shots of the colourful grains. I was very proud of Tris for 2 reasons: 1) he stopped and asked for directions and 2) he pulled over a few times to let me get the photos that I wanted.

At one point he pulled over just a half block away from some corn drying, and when I got out to take a few photos a bunch of young guys waved me into their village (it was next to the road). What they wanted me for was to take photos of a woman who was using a board with sharp nails poking through it to take the dried kernels of corn off the husks. Everyone wanted me to take photos and who was I to say no??? It was probably the best part of that day because mom and dad (who you can't keep in the car when there's people involved) and I got to speak with local villagers...and these ones didn't want our money! We find that when money or sales are not involved, the people of Lombok are extremely friendly and enjoyable to be with.

As we travelled along on the trip north we saw a few great shots of various means of transporting goods and people. I especially like the irony that both dad and Tris pointed out in this photo: it's muslim woman covered head to toe and they're riding in a minibus that is covered in Playboy Bunny symbols. This photo of a man riding atop a heavily packed bus reminds me of the five weeks I spent in the Philippines almost 20 years ago. We rode in very similar buses, and a lot of the time we rode on the top!

Sometimes the only way to transport goods is on a motorbike, and there are men transporting greens, lumber, chickens or whatever all over the island.

On the way home we saw a family ploughing their fields...right next to the ocean. When I think of ploughing I think of Little House on the Prairie type fields, not ones where there's an incredible view of the ocean right next to you.

You've got to wonder if the farmer even notices...that's very hard work that he's got to do, and the heat is pretty intense.

Back at the hotel, on the beach in front of our rooms were some fishermen who hit the seas every morning. Quite often they arrived on land around 8 in the morning and spent 1 1/2 hours pulling in a net. Both dad and I witnessed the results of all this hard work...I saw them pull in about 8 10-inch fish, and dad a few days later saw them haul in a huge amount of garbage but no fish. Not only do they fish for hours and get little food...they also have to deal with whatever the ocean gives them. Once when I was checking out the sales huts along the beach, I heard shouting. One boatload of fishermen weren't quite quick enough to outrun a string of huge waves and were overtaken by seawater. Later I asked if they were okay, and there was no damage to the boat or to any man. I love to look closely at this shot because you see men running all directions in what looks like panic.

It's my goal to try and not write more than a page each posting, but sometimes that's just not a possibility!

Thanks for taking the drive up to the north of Lombok island with us!